NOVEL MOLECULAR MEMORY ON SI AND TWO-DIMENSIONAL MATERIALS

Abstract

The dimensional scaling down of microelectronics to further increase the storage ability and density is confronting the fundamental and physical limit. The performance of high density, low power consumption non-volatile memory as the important part in portable electronic devices like cellphone, tablet and laptop will have a drastic impact on these devices. Molecular electronic technology has attracted much attention due to its nanoscale features, flexibly tunable properties and tremendous application prospects, etc. Replacing the currently used traditional flash memory with high-performance Flash-based molecular non-volatile memory for further scaling down, will be an effective method for increasing storage density and stability. In this study, we introduce the development of molecular electronics in the application of non-volatile memory. Recently, solid-state non-volatile memory devices based on redox-active molecules have been reported, exhibiting fast speed, low operation voltage, excellent endurance and multi-bit storage, outperforming the conventional floating-gate flash memory. I have fabricated and characterized a kind of Flash-like Ru molecular memory devices. This Ru molecular exhibit excellent memory window under high-frequency CV measurement. The programming and erasing response speed are also suitable for Flash memory applications. The stability of our molecular memory devices is demonstrated by endurance characterization for more than 105 cycles. The charge storage in these molecular memory devices is basically derived from the intrinsic redox processes lead by a sweeping gate voltage bias. Compare with the traditional flash memory, the intrinsic redox and the stable molecular properties lead to a very reliable and high-density charge storage ability. Two-dimensional materials, especially layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), such as molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and tungsten diselenide (WSe2) have recently become superstar materials as nanomaterials for future flexible, portable and high-performance electronic devices due to their excellent physical, electrical and mechanical properties. We have developed approaches of redox-active molecule attachment on 2-dimensional materials. Redox-active molecular memory based on 2-dimensional materials have been fabricated and measured. Our finding about redox-active molecule provides many opportunities for novel non-volatile memory applications.